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Are You Ready For Stock Trading? - Mike Swanson (09/09/09)

Submitted by Mike Swanson on Wed, 2009-09-09 14:36.

Most everyone who would like to try to invest in the stock market can. It does not take a business degree. Anyone in any occupation or from any background can learn. However, with the economy not doing as well currently, it is your decision to start trading now using technical analysis. A stockbroker can be used if you think you may need professional advice.

Looking at a newspaper with all the stock options, it can be intimidating. A safe way to invest is through mutual funds. These are managed full time by brokers, and they choose a variety of different stocks for your portfolio. This provides a safety because if one stock is not doing well then another stock in your portfolio may be doing well. This balances out your investment.

When buying stocks, you may be able to purchase them directly from the company. However, another option is to use a discount broker who help save on trading fees that would be included otherwise. Another tip would be to purchase the stocks within a retirement account. There are also tax-friendly stocks that are not retirement accounts. These help increase your return. Watch gold stock picks, because they are now on the move.

Avoid buying your stocks from a commission-based brokerage firm. The reason why is that these firms may have conflicts of interest with the companies with whom they sell their stock. They may receive incentives for selling a companies stock.

The keys to stock trading include not trying to time the stock markets. This is nearly impossible. It is better to purchase stocks when they are on sale and market pessimism is high. It is important not to overestimate your ability to pick winning stocks. Watching the 50 hottest stocks is always smart.

The next tip is to diversify the portfolio. Choose stocks from different companies in a variety of businesses. Check income each year to calculate returns after expenses and trading fees. It is important to minimize the cost of management fees, trading costs, and commissions. Lastly, to maximize the total income from stocks, be aware of the taxes accrued with stock purchases. These can be lessened with retirement accounts. For more check out our stock trading guide.

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Hello. My name is Mike Swanson. I’m the best-selling author of the book Strategic Stock Trading. In a former life I used to run a hedge fund from 2003 to 2006 that generated a return of over 78% during that time frame. In fact it was ranked in the top 35 out of 5,000 hedge funds in 2005.

After I retired from the hedge fund world I setup this website and blog. If you sign up for my free weekly email list below I’ll send you an update on average about once a week on my views of the current stock market trends and share with you actionable investment ideas.

Now I cannot promise you that every stock I find will go up in value. I can’t promise you endless 100% returns as others claim they do and as all the disclaimers say past performance does not necessarily predict future performance and you can lose all of your money in the stock market.

This is reality.

What I can promise you is my dedication to doing the best I can for you.

You see the key to making money over the long-run in the stock market is to manage your risk. Once you sign up to my newsletter I’ll send you a series of educational videos and writings showing you how I use stop-loss orders to cut any potential losses and how I use my two fold formula system that combines fundamental and technical analysis to pick stocks. My goal is to risk one dollar to try to make at least three dollars in my trades by looking for stocks that are priced cheaply on a valuation basis, have high earnings growth, and have excellent chart patterns.

So join my list below and let me help guide you on your journey in the stock market.